Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Pros/Cons Of Child Protective Services

No issue concerns young parents more than the proper raising of their children. For years there has been a battle between some parents and state agencies known as Child Protective Services (CPS). In the beginning, CPS was a good idea – because it's primary purpose was to protect children from unstable parents who did them harm. However, as the years have passed by – many states did not regulate CPS well, so some case workers took on a God like complex and started taking away children from their parents even when no harm was evident. What are the pros and cons of CPS? The pros side is pretty easy to explain, because no right thinking person wants to see a child hurt by a parent or guardian. Having children might be a right, but treating those kids in a way that might bring them physical or emotion harm is not. Without some type of government agency, many children would be forced to live in deplorable condition with no way out. Keeping children alive, is the biggest thing on the pros side of having a state agency like CPS. Sadly, there are mentally ill parents or ones who are addicted to drugs or alcohol - which are not good role models or caregivers for kids of any age. On the cons side of having a government agency like CPS is that case workers are given too much power over families who are simply different from what the agency considers normal. Using any kind of moral judgment, not based on law, is a terrible con when case workers have the power of temporary custody over children. Another huge thing on the cons side of CPS is the bureaucratic mentality of almost everyone who works in government from the federal to state level. Poor management of case workers and the inability of government to police itself leads to many heartbreaking stories where children are removed from homes simply because a case worker does not believe in the religious and moral teachings of a parent. For CPS to live up to it's original purpose, strong management and oversight must be the norm and not just the exception when dealing with these critical decision.